On Distractions and Mixed Emotions

This is one of those days that I'm filled with mixed emotions, even to the point of not being able to focus on the things I need to be doing. It is, of course, the twentieth anniversary of the 9-11 murders, a somber day to be sure, but an anniversary (considering recent events in Afghanistan) that fills me with a whole new kind of regret. So today I feel guilty about not wanting to think much at all about what happened to all of us all those years ago.

Instead, I'm focusing on the little things that are happening all around me right now, like finally getting my car back from the body shop after four weeks of waiting for a new headlight to arrive so that the repairs could be completed. The covid pandemic has caused our supply chain to be crippled in a way that the world's interconnected economy is obviously still struggling to overcome. Four weeks for a headlight to make it to Houston from the supplier is ridiculous! The fellow-who-hit-me's insurance company ended up paying almost a $1,000 in rental car payments on a repair that the shop only charged $1,605 to complete. But now, after a month, it feels like I'm driving a brand new car...and I don't have to putter around in that boxy little Kia Soul anymore.

And college football is back. It feels so good simply to type that sentence. As I do every season, I have high hopes that my team, the Texas A&M Aggies, will have a great season. It doesn't always happen...make that it hardly ever happens...but I always hope that this will be the year. The problem is that A&M competes in the same conference and same division as Alabama, a team that seldom loses more than one game a year. That means that finishing second is almost the most we can ever realistically hope to achieve. Still, I can't wait to see how the Aggies fare against Colorado this afternoon in the second game of the season.

And I visited a couple of used-book bookstores last week and came away with some good stuff. At one store, I found a 1965 copy of Rex Stout's The Doorbell Rang and even though the book was minus its jacket, I am happy to have it on the shelf. I also found an unread copy of Ian Rankin's A Song for the Dark Times in the same shop, and despite already having read and loved it, I added it to my Rankin collection. 

At a different shop, I came home with three books I didn't even know I wanted when I walked through the doors - love when that happens. One is a signed copy of Sherman Alexi's 2012 short story collection called Blasphemy. Alexi is a native American author whose work I've really enjoyed in the last few months, so I'm looking forward both to reading this one and adding it to my permanent collection of short story compilations. 

I'm also a huge fan of Gerald Seymour's books and was happy to find an unread copy of one of his novels, The Walking Dead, that I was unfamiliar with. Thankfully, just so you know, there are no zombies in this book. This is the story of a British secret service agent who is sent to Saudi Arabia on an anti-terrorist suicide mission. Seymour writes some of the best thrillers of this type imaginable, so I'm really looking forward to reading this one. To show how highly Gerald Seymour is thought of around the world, The New York Times says of him, "The three British masters of suspense, Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, and John le Carré, have been joined by a fourth - Gerald Seymour." I agree.

The third book I picked up in that bookstore was the last one I reviewed here: I'd Rather Be Reading, a book I responded to with a different type of mixed emotion. I don't exactly regret purchasing this one, but...well, you get it by now. 

The highlight of my book-buying week, however, was the arrival of a copy of The Library of America's volume of Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel, An American Tragedy. This one is over 900 pages long, and I've already read it three times, but I know I'll want to read it again. This is a novel I first read in high school, and I feel as if it is the one that made me fall in love forever with crime novels. Even though it is fiction, because of Dreiser's style and the nature of the crime he describes, it reads very much like a true crime book at times. And the physical book itself is absolutely beautiful - as are all hardcover books coming from Library of America. As the 121 LOA books on my shelves clearly shout out, Library of America is my favorite publisher of them all. 

Well, it's almost game time, so I'm going to fix a quick lunch and settle in for that. Maybe tomorrow, I'll be ready to think about this twentieth anniversary of the tragic mass murder of September 11, 2001, at least in small doses. I just can't do it today, so I'm purposely avoiding tuning in to certain television channels. 

I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life - Anne Bogel

I stumbled upon Anne Bogel’s I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life a few days ago at a used-book bookstore and snatched it right up, figuring that Bogel had to be a kindred spirit. And, even though the book was a little less inspiring than I expected it would be, I was correct about Bogel. She is.

I’d Rather Be Reading consists of an introduction and twenty-one short “reflections” on readers, reading, and the books we love so much. Really avid readers know how difficult it is to pass by books like this one when we run across them unexpectedly. I think we enjoy these so much because reading a book about the joys of reading is almost like having a private conversation with a stranger who actually gets who we are. There are lots of us out here in the real world, but it is not every day that we run into each other, so books like I’d Rather Be Reading (along with book blog commenting) are the next best thing. 

“But avid readers know a great book doesn’t exist only in the realm of the material. The words between those covers bring whole worlds to life. When I think of the characters and stories and ideas contained on a single shelf of my personal library, it boggles my mind. To readers, those books — the ones we buy and borrow and trade and sell — are more than objects. They are opportunities beckoning us. When we read, we connect with them (or don’t) in a personal way.”

And then, there’s this tidbit: 

“We are readers. Books are an essential part of our lives and of our life stories. For us, reading isn’t just a hobby or a pastime; it’s a lifestyle.”

Bogel even touches briefly on one of my own pet peeves:

“We know the pain of investing hours of reading time in a book we enjoyed right up until the final chapter’s truly terrible resolution…”

And these quotes are all from just the book’s introduction, so yeah, Anne Bogel gets it.

Bogel’s topics for reflection include these:

• Confessing your literary sins — all those classics you’ve never read,
• The difference between searching for the next perfect read and having the book find you instead,
• The unbelievable good luck of living right next door to a city library,
• How books allow readers to live thousands of different lives,
• The great fun of organizing and reorganizing your bookshelves — over and over again,
• The danger of becoming a “book bully” who pushes books on friends and family,
• All the different readers she has already been during her (relatively short) lifetime,
• How library due dates motivate her to read more and read faster,
• How your reading choices influence your real-world coming-of-age,
• The joy of meeting a “book twin,”
• Re-reading (“Again, for the First Time”),
• Personal bookshelves being the true “windows to the soul,” and
• The difficulty of remembering off the top of your head which books you read even one month ago.

Bottom Line: While I’d Rather Be Reading is fun, and sometimes inspirational, it left me feeling that the author had only skimmed the surface of most of her chosen topics. Some of the chapters read more like introductions to an idea or topic than true reflections, and I was often left wishing for more. I suspect that I would have enjoyed this one more if I had found it a couple of decades earlier (impossible, I know, because I’d Rather Be Reading was published in 2018), making me think that I’ve already read too many similar books — and that maybe there’s just not that much left to say.  

Anne Bogel

Not Quite Dead Enough - Rex Stout

For a number of reasons, Not Quite Dead Enough, comprised of two novellas published under a single title, is probably the most fascinating Nero Wolfe book that I’ve read. The first of the  two novellas, Not Quite Dead Enough, was originally published in 1942 in an abridged format in the December edition of The American Magazine, and the second, Booby Trap, was abridged for the same magazine in August 1944. But the most fun thing about the novellas is that, because they were written and published in the midst of World War II, Stout decides to remove Wolfe from his NYC apartment cocoon and force him to cope (which he does rather effectively) in the real world.

Not Quite Dead Enough begins with Archie Goodwin, now a newly promoted Army major, tasked with convincing his old boss Nero Wolfe that Wolfe should apply his investigatory talents to furthering America’s war efforts — free of charge, of course. Archie agrees to give it a try, but receives the shock of his life when he attempts to surprise Wolfe by showing up at Wolfe’s apartment unannounced. Neither Wolfe nor Fritz (the cook) are anywhere to be seen; every surface in the apartment is dusty, piles of unopened mail are on Wolfe’s desk, and even Wolfe’s beloved orchids are being ignored. Are the two men dead or have they been kidnapped? Neither, as it turns out. 

Even more amazingly, Wolfe (a World War I veteran) and Fritz are getting themselves in shape to join the army so that, as Wolfe puts it, they can “kill Germans.” Archie, though, has the perfect way to get Wolfe back in the game: a dead woman who moves around even after she quits breathing. 

By the time that novella number two, Booby Trap, begins, Wolfe has agreed to help the army investigate the murder of an officer who may have been involved in a plan to profit from advanced weapons technology being readied for battlefield deployment. Either the dead colonel was in the middle of the scheme or he knew too much about it to be allowed to live another minute. Either way, Wolfe considers everyone involved to be traitors to the country during a time of war, and he badly wants to nail them. 

Bottom Line: The two novellas in Not Quite Dead Enough give Nero Wolfe the chance to show a different side of his personality. In both novellas, readers get a glimpse of a patriotic, much less self-absorbed, and much more ruthless Nero Wolfe than they expected ever to see. Wolfe has always been willing to be both “judge and jury” during his investigations. Now the question is whether he is also willing to be “executioner.” 

Rex Stout

An Obvious Fact - Craig Johnson

In what turned out to be one of those “be careful what you wish for” moments, one of my 2021reading goals was to catch up on some of the crime/detective series I love so much. Among those targeted was Craig Johnson’s (soon to be) seventeen-book Longmire series because I had already read fourteen of the sixteen so-far-published novels. So, now, after having just finished reading An Obvious Fact, the twelfth book in the series, I’m officially caught up until the September 21 publication of Daughter of the Morning Star. But I enjoyed An Obvious Fact so much, that I’m starting to second guess my decision to catch up on Longmire - or any of my other favorite series, for that matter. After all, it’s really kind of nice to know that any reading slump you might find yourself enduring can be quickly stopped in its tracks by picking up a book filled with characters and settings that you have already enjoyed so much. 

For a couple of reasons, An Obvious Fact is one of my favorite books in the whole series. First, it’s set in and around Sturgis during what is easily the largest motorcycle rally anywhere in the world every year, and second, both Vic Moretti, and especially Henry Standing Bear, play major roles in the action. That’s just about perfect because much of the fun of a Longmire novel comes from watching Walt interact with Vic and Henry over the course of an investigation, and this one offers that treat as much, if not more, than any other novel in the series. Walt and Henry have been friends almost their entire lives, but they now share a bond with ex-Philadelphia cop Vic that will last all of them the rest of their lives. 

Walt Longmire is sheriff in a spacious Wyoming county, but he doesn’t let county lines stop him from going after the bad guys. Not everyone welcomes Walt’s help, but this time around, he’s actually been asked to cross the state line into South Dakota to help investigate a hit and run accident that left a young biker in a coma. So Henry, a regular at the annual Sturgis rally, and Walt climb into Henry’s 1959 Thunderbird called Lola, hook up a trailer to carry Henry’s vintage Indian bike to the rally, and head to Sturgis, South Dakota. Henry even packs the three annotated volumes of Sherlock Holmes stories he’s recently borrowed from Walt, a decision that Walt will soon regret after Henry begins to pepper him with appropriate quotes from the stories at every new stage of their investigation. 

Craig Johnson is a master when it comes to inserting humor when you least expect it, such as when Walt and Henry find out that they were spotted entering a property during an illegal search they made:

…Feeling relatively assured, I made the corner at the alley and walked directly into the extended barrel of an S&W .357 Magnum.

“I just wanted you to see how bad planning feels.” Engelhardt (a local cop) holstered his revolver. “Got a call about a half hour ago from Mrs. Hirsch, who lives across the way here. She’s got an irritable bladder condition and happened to see a large man walking on the roof of this building and another large man entering through the front door.”

“Here I thought we were being real stealthy.”

“Hard to sneak by an irritable bladder.”

“I’m going to have that needlepointed and put on my office wall.”

Bottom Line: The initial crime being investigated in An Obvious Fact leads to some unexpected places and some unexpected people, including the woman Henry was so struck by decades earlier that she became the namesake for his Thunderbird, and by extension, of Walt’s own granddaughter. There is a lot going on here: rival motorcycle gangs, ATF undercover agents, a rookie cop who finds the perfect mentor in Walt Longmire, an evil millionaire, drugs, and a little espionage thrown in as icing on the cake. It’s hard not to love this one.

Craig Johnson

The Old Man - Thomas Perry

It’s hard to explain why an author sometimes drops off your radar for decades before you come back to them. And that happens to me sometimes even with a writer as good as Thomas Perry, someone whose novels I enjoyed reading and was impressed by before not picking up another one for about thirty years. Thankfully, Perry’s 2017 novel The Old Man finally caught my eye long enough for those good memories to kick back in long enough for me to pick up the book for a closer look.

I was hooked from the first paragraph:

“An old man should have a dog.” Dan Chase’s daughter had told him that ten years ago, after his wife died. The part that surprised him was the term “old man.” He had just turned fifty then. But he supposed she was only giving him advance notice, time to get used to the idea and find a suitable dog. After a man’s wife died, he had to do something not to die too.

Dan Chase sounds like a family man at loose ends, one whose daughter is worried about his emotional health, and based on this paragraph you might think that you’ve picked up a tearjerker, one of those books that punch all the right buttons for older readers looking for stories about people like themselves. Well, you would be wrong; this is a Thomas Perry novel, after all, and all kinds of hell are about to break loose.

Dan Chase has a past. Thirty-five years ago, as a young army intelligence offer, Dan was sent to Libya to deliver several million dollars to an intermediary tasked with getting those funds to a rebel army badly in need of U.S. assistance. But as it turned out, that man was not interesting in giving up one dime of the money to help anyone but himself, so Dan risked his life by going back into Libya to reclaim the money and return it to the government. Unfortunately for Dan, his superiors did not want anyone to learn just how badly the mission had gone, so they decided to cover their own bad judgement by branding Dan a thief and a traitor to his country. They wanted him dead.

By now Dan Chase (one of the old man’s many aliases) has been hiding and/or on the run for close to four decades. He lives in Vermont with not one, but two, big dogs where he appears to be nothing more than a typical retiree enjoying his daughter and grandsons. As far as that goes, that’s who he is. But Dan Chase has never let his guard down, so when two Libyan assassins show up at his house one night, they don’t stand much of a chance against him and his dogs.

But the chase is on again, and Dan knows that it’s not just the Libyans after him. His own government, to one degree or another, is still smack dab in the middle of it all.

Bottom Line: The Old Man is a first rate thriller that moves the reader from point A to point Z in thrilling fashion as the people chasing our hero get closer and closer to catching him. But it is much more than that. Perry takes the time to develop several memorable characters along the way while detailing the evolving relationships these characters have with Chase. The Old Man is as close to a character-driven thriller as can be written without slowing down the basic premise of the story. I’m excited now to go back and read all those Thomas Perry books I’ve missed over the years…money in the bank.

Thomas Perry

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse - Various Authors

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse, published in 2019, is the third book in a series of similar collections, having been preceded by Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse in 2008 and Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse in 2015. 

As I began this 524-page compilation of 34 apocalyptic short stories by various authors, I doubted that I was up to reading the entire collection, figuring that the similar nature of the stories would ultimately lead to my loss of interest in reading so many of them at once. After all, how many ways are there for the world to end? Well, here are some of the ones that these guys came up with:

• Economic Crash caused by running out of oil
• Global Warming leading to a nuclear winter
• Virus leading to a zombie apocalypse
• Nuclear War
• An uncontrollable fungus
• An unstoppable flu 
• A quickly mutating virus
• A takeover by computers and robots
• Alien Invaders
• Meteor Impact
• A mutated rabies virus
• Destruction of the ozone layer
• Flooding of all land masses

You will notice that there are only thirteen end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios listed, and that even some of these are similar, so most of them are used more than once. That, however, is where the real creativity of the selected writers becomes obvious. Some authors focus on the cause of the apocalypse, some on the aftermath, some on how survivors are coping and adapting, and a couple (my least favorites) are just generic sci-fi thrillers focusing on the fighting between survivors. There are even a couple of surrealistic stories that, honestly, made almost no sense at all to me as I struggled through them. 

I use a numbering system to help me judge the overall quality of short story collection by assigning each story from one to five points immediately after finishing them. Short story complications, by their nature, are almost always uneven, but with eight 5-star stories, thirteen 4-star stories, eight 3-star stories, and five 2-star stories, Wastelands: The New Apocalypse comes in with a solid 3.7 stars overall based on the average rating of the individual stories.

Among my favorites are: “Snow” by Dale Bailey, “So Sharp, So Bright, So Final” by Seanan McGuire, “The Elephants’ Crematorium” by Timothy Mudie, “The Eyes of the Flood” by Susan Jane Bidelow, and “The Last Garden” by Jack Skillingstead. 

Bottom Line: Wastelands: The New Apocalypse is an entertaining, and often thought-provoking, collection of short stories with a common theme. There is something here for every kind of science fiction fan in addition to the kind of character-driven storytelling that will appeal to readers who do not necessarily share an enthusiasm for short stories of this type. This collection is so much fun, in fact, that I’m tempted now to find the first two volumes in the series.